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PHOENIX — If the 2024 presidential election is close in Arizona, a newly enacted state law will mandate a ballot recount that will probably cause the state to miss crucial deadlines for certifying the vote, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post and interviews with elections officials.
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Arizona was central to attempts by Trump and his allies to change the outcome of the 2020 election, and many Republican primary voters in the state continue to be fixated on election denialism, a movement stoked by Trump and others who refuse to accept the results. The battleground state is expected to play a pivotal role in the next presidential election and any holdup in counting votes there could cause chaos.
In a Sept. 11 letter to the County Supervisors Association of Arizona and the Arizona Association of Counties, an organization representing election officials from all of the state’s 15 counties wrote that the new law — passed after President Biden’s narrow win in Arizona in 2020 — will “put in jeopardy” immovable deadlines on the election calendar, including those that are part of the electoral college process and those that confirm the winners of August primaries so that general-election ballots can be mailed to military and overseas voters.
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Worst-case scenario, more than half a dozen election officials told The Post, Arizona could delay pivotal steps in the process for sitting a president.
The prospect of triggering an electoral crisis has led voting administrators, their lawyers and organizations that represent them to demand immediate solutions from Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) and leaders in the GOP-controlled legislature. One major proposal would move Arizona’s primary election earlier in the summer. Other ideas to buy more time during the general election include speeding up the proofreading of ballots and allowing local officials to more quickly transmit results to the state.
“The entire United States would have to be waiting on us,” said Kent Volkmer, the attorney representing Pinal County, which is southeast of Phoenix and is among the state’s most conservative areas. “The entirety of the American people will be waiting on the state of Arizona.”
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Sam Elters, the county manager of Mohave County, a conservative area in northern Arizona, said in an interview that the concerns “are real and impactful to” every county.
“Not meeting the timelines could have very consequential implications on the state’s ability to certify the election results nationally and locally,” Elters said.
A confluence of factors has set off alarm among elections officials.
After Trump’s razor-thin loss in 2020 that ushered in attacks on the once-obscure management of elections, Republican and Democratic lawmakers proposed a measure intended to strengthen confidence in electoral outcomes. The measure lowered the threshold that triggers automatic recounts in certain races, including statewide and legislative ones.
At the time, county officials warned that the proposal would increase the number of contests needing time-intensive recounts. They also said the measure could complicate their abilities to hit mandatory deadlines between primary and general elections. The implications of the bipartisan law have not been tested during a full election cycle because the law did not take effect until the 2022 midterm general election.
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Previously, recounts in Arizona were infrequent. But the competitive nature of the state, combined with the new law, resulted in at least three recounts last November — one for a legislative seat in a swing district and two for statewide offices, including the contest for attorney general that was won by just 280 votes.
Based on that experience, and projecting higher voter turnout during the presidential cycle, election officials estimate that it will take about three weeks to recount ballots during the August primary election. It could take even longer to recount votes after the 2024 general election, officials said, pushing up against the deadline for the issuance of certificates of ascertainment of presidential electors, as well as the meeting of electors to vote for president and vice president.
“We’re unfortunately moving into a perfect storm of timing,” said Jennifer Marson, executive director of the Arizona Association of Counties, which lobbies for counties.
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She said it is unclear what would happen if the state misses two pivotal dates that are part of the presidential certification process, namely the Dec. 17, 2024, vote of electors that helps determine an electoral-college winner.
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“If we miss that deadline, we are in uncharted territory,” Marson said. “To my knowledge, that deadline has never been missed by any state — ever.”
For a mandatory recount, election workers would have to wait for an order from a court and then re-tally millions of ballots through tabulation machines and audit samples of those ballots. After the primary, this would have to happen while simultaneously preparing to run the general election.
Scott Jarrett — elections director in Maricopa, the state’s largest county, and president of the Election Officials of Arizona, which represents election officials in all 15 counties — wrote in the letter to the two organizations that represent the state’s counties that the situation “would introduce opportunities for errors and inaccuracies.”
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Election officials face strict and complex timelines set by federal and state laws that affect everything from ensuring the accuracy of candidate names, to printing ballots, to inserting ballots into envelopes, to mailing ballots to military and overseas voters 45 days before the election — or Sept. 21, 2024, according to the letter.
Color-coded calendars gaming out the scenario illustrate the problem, with anticipated primary-election recount activities overlapping deadlines ahead of — and well past — the general election.
One version of the calendar estimates that counties would begin transmitting results to the Arizona secretary of state on Dec. 16, 2024 — a day before electors are required to meet to cast votes for president and vice president, according to the National Archives’s timeline of electoral college events. That version pegs the results of the state’s recounts to become available on Dec. 28, 2024.
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To prepare for anticipated recounts, officials are looking for ways to build in extra time to conduct the anticipated re-tallies. They are considering options that would both shorten and speed up the amount of time needed to perform certain duties required under state law.
Options to buy time include moving the date of the Aug. 6 primary election to earlier in the summer, reducing the number of days to proofread ballots, ensuring that courts can work during the weekends to order recounts and allowing rural officials to transmit election results electronically rather than driving them to the secretary of state’s office in Phoenix.
Members of the two associations that represent Arizona counties passed a resolution in September conveying an urgent need for state leaders to act, given the fast-approaching election calendar. The problem, the resolution said, “is neither a financial nor personnel problem, but a problem of statutory timelines and deadlines.”
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Election officials met this week with the governor’s chief of staff, attorney and top legislative aides, who created a task force that is also examining election laws and procedures. During the meeting, the aides expressed interest in resolving the issue but did not elaborate on how they would approach the problem, according to the three people familiar with the conversation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details about the private meeting. Hobbs’s aides told The Post on Wednesday that the governor’s team has begun talking to state lawmakers about the issue.
Hobbs, who was secretary of state during the 2020 election, said that she is aware of expected effects of the new recount law and is “glad to partner with elections officials” for a legislative fix.
“In 2024, all eyes will be on Arizona,” Hobbs said in a statement. “We must ensure that Arizonans’ votes are counted, including in the presidential election, and that the American people have full confidence in our election processes and our democracy.”
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Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) is “aware of the issue” and is meeting with county election officials this month to explore possible solutions, a spokesperson said.
One elections director from a conservative, rural Arizona county who was not authorized to speak publicly about the looming problem, expressed optimism that a solution would be found.
“I’m very hopeful that working with our legislators will result in a solution that will allow Arizona election officials the days they need to statutorily conduct automatic recounts,” the director said in a written statement.
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